Batman: The Moment
by Erarey13
Summary: In a city of victims, of survivors, of fighters, of the damned, the condemned, the corrupt and the innocent, one life, or death, can be insignificant. For those who have sworn to defend the city, their city, and it's people, their people, every moment is a battle against fate, one often lost. For some, it's the beginning of something beautiful, delicious... a joke, almost.


_**Howdy do, folks! Alright, it's been a while since I've done much, and this foray into Batman is something I'm trying to handle even more delicately than my previous fanfiction work. This will be told from the perspective of an OC, but will constantly cross paths with the Dark Knight and other Gotham regulars. I consider it a labor of love. I hope to do the source material justice and have FUN with it. All I'm going to say about the story is it is going to be from the perspective of a born and bred Gothamite, sans gadgets and superhuman powers, yet still with a fate entwined with their city, just like our caped crusader. Okay well I'm being a little overdramatic. If you're reading this, you've bought the ticket, and I hope the ride is worth it, I'm trying to make it a long one! I Do Not Own Batman or any Associated Characters. This is a work of Fanfiction, with references to series lore and settings as well as characters.  
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My grandfather, Josepp Kintz, was a boxer, scraggly little nothing that grew up hauling meat for great-grandpop at his butcher shop in the Bowery. He got into boxing after one too many scrapes at school, who knew a Jewish kid would have problems in Crime Alley, and now has a bust in the Fashion District, right outside the Nu-Fite sportsplex. In most bars around the city, you can still mention the family name and get either a few old winos cheering, a free beer if you're family, or more dirty looks than you'd think people were capable of. Kinda happens when you get a reputation from a sketchy fight or two and more than a couple endorsements for the wrong kind of politician. Doesn't matter if the rumors were only half true. All he knew was hard work and fighting, so that's how he handled everything in life, even my old man.

Pop, or Sir, wasn't a bad guy. Got tough love as a kid, without the love, joined the Army to get the hell away from Gotham and granddad, came back without a leg from some African hellhole, met Ma at the hospital he recovered in, moved back to Gotham to make granddad's deathbed. Problem with pop was he had the mean in him from granddad that was always at odds with the good he was born with. Do well in school, help around the house, don't piss of ma too much, he'd bend over backwards for you. Get caught trying to lift a candy bar, break a window in his 'office' in the garage, leave evidence of the smoking you swore you didn't do 'round the house, you'd be lucky if you could hear or sit down for a week. The old man became a cop, did the boxing stuff to help with GCPD city youth athletic league and keep kids out of trouble, never did it for money. You don't know how many times some uncle or friend of my dad's tells me how big he could have made it if he'd just gone pro.

Then you got me, Carl Kintz, the second. I was a punk as a kid, I'll admit it. Was fat, got skinny after one too many cracks about my waistline from kids and family, started shit at school, on the streets, around the city. By this time, dad was known throughout the city as the officer who found the Waynes and tried to save them after they got shot, escorted their son, Bruce, like a personal guardian angel from the crime scene to the funeral. Once my high-school rebel bullshit started getting out of hand, he handled me soon as I snuck back into the house.  
The first slap made my vision go white, grabbed me by the arms so hard I thought he was breaking the bone. "You want to die?" I think I mumbled something in between sobs about how much I hated him. The second slap made me bite the inside of my cheek, I tasted blood. "You want to die like some thug, in the streets, HUH!?" I didn't even get the chance to answer before the third slap sent me sailing to the floor, still blubbering through tears. "I've watched folks, good folk, honest folk, have to pick out their boy's body from a God damn garden of corpses we got at the precinct down in Crime Alley alone. That doesn't even count the morgues in Chinatown, the docks, the narrows, all of them full of wannabe Falcones, dumb little punks with guns and knives."

I found the nerve to look up at him. The look in his eyes, I had seen it once in the face of some psycho drunk that had tried to stab me over a soda I had stolen from some newsstand. It was a desperation without reason, without hope. Besides the Wayne incident, he had the bloody reputation as the officer in Gotham with the most lethal force incidents, the most survived stabbings and attempted drivebys while on the beat. He never talked about what he did in the Army, never talked about work at home, never even kept his gun anywhere other than in a double locked case in his office. But in that moment, I realized he didn't need to talk about it. He was trapped in all those moments, trapped in those memories, and they all screamed out at me from his eyes, the careful mask of loving father, respected police officer, everything falling away to show me the horror that kept him alive and made him slap the everloving shit out of me that night.

To cut a long story short, I straightened up, did better in school, hell I even stopped smoking. I trained under my dad for boxing and got pretty good at that, was a champ at Gotham U, graduated with a degree in criminal science, and, surprise surprise, became a cop. I was a favorite of Chief Gordon, he had been a beat cop with my dad and ran me through the ringer, trying to see if I could measure up. Apparently I did. Got assigned to the tactical response team for the city, dealt with prison transfers for Arkham and Blackgate, even had a hand in the takedown of one of the Falcone lieutenants during the gang war. The last one.

The one flaring up right now, between the chinatown thugs, the Italian families and all the freaks that have been carving out territory all over the city is some other kind of monster even my old man can't believe. To top that all off, the whole city is talking about some bat-thing running around beating the hell out of crooks. I don't say this out loud, since Gordon's got a particular sore spot over it, but I say let whatever the hell it is, if it's real, keep doing what it's doing. Save me some work.


End file.
